Nokia Lumia 930 vs Lumia 950/950 XL, the design/feature comparison

Yesterday the long awaited Microsoft Event took place and there where some huge surprises at the 2 hours long event. A lot of next generation devices have been announced like the Microsoft Band 2, the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 along with the Microsoft Lumia 950 and Microsoft Lumia 950 XL. With the Microsoft Lumia 950 and it’s bigger brother the Lumia 950 XL Microsoft has announced two important devices for the future of Microsoft in the movile segment. The market was asking for new high end devices and Microsoft has answered this with two fabulous new devices which are available for preorder already and soon also available to buy.

Though before you are buying one of these you might want to know what does these two devices make so special. Well first of all Microsoft is the first company to build in liquid cooling in a smartphone. This is a completely new cooling technology for smartphones which is massively improving the cooling process in a smartphone. If you have are currently rocking a Nokia Lumia 930 you might have noticed that the device can get pretty warm in the lower right corner if you are playing a lot with the phone or if you are using the Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview. With the Liquid cooling process this problem gets solved very elegantly.The Microsoft Lumia 950 and 950 Xl will also be Microsoft’s fiorst devices which are shipped with the new standard USB Type C which allows a high data transfer rate and quicker charging. Therefor in only 30 minutes you can charge this phone to 50%.

There are a few other stunning hardware specifications of the two new high end devices in the Lumia row. The question is how are these devices performing compared to the Lumia 930 which is the predecessor which was until yesterday also the latest high end windows phone device. We have not got trial devices yet to show you the massive performance improvements of the devices however we can compare the specifications and that does look very promising already.

Nokia Lumia 930

Nokia Lumia 950

Nokia Lumia 950 XL

Processor

Quad-core 2.2 GHz

Hexa-core 1.8 GHz

Octa-core 2.0 GHz

Camera

20.0 MP

20.0 MP

20.0 MP

Front Camera

1.2 MP Wide-Angle

5 MP Wide-Angle

5 MP Wide-Angle

Flash

Dual LED

Natural Flash

Natural Flash

Charging

Build-In Wireless Charging

Build-In Wireless Charging, Fast Charging

Build-In Wireless Charging, Fast Charging

Display

5.0″

5.2″

5.7″

Resolution

Full HD 1080 x 1920

WQHD 2560 x 1440

WQHD 2560 x 1440

Storage

32 GB

32 GB

32 GB

Expandable

No

Yes, up to 200GB

Yes, up to 200GB

Network

4G LTE

4G LTE

4G LTE

Dual SIM

No

Yes, Nano SIM

Yes, Nano SIM

So this is a basic comparison between the latest additions to the Lumia family, the Microsoft Lumia 950 / XL and one of the last device with a Nokia Branding on it, the Nokia Lumia 930. There has changed a bit which does also show how important it was for Microsoft to release a new High End device. It wouldn’t have been that important if the 950 and the 950 XL would been only there for updating the processor, display etc., but since Microsoft has released the 930 there were introduced a few new standards in the mobile market segment which is important for every high end smartphone manufacturer to have a device in his portfolio which does support these new standards.So there is first of all, USB Type-C or USB C like some are saying. This will be the standard which is replacing Micro USB and the first advantage over the old standard id the reversible use, with USB C it doesn’t matter which side is up. Next of, you remember when Apple introduced the Lightning USB connector, well and do you also know why? Yeah right its thinner thane the old connector which allows a new smartphone design. Same with USB C, it’s slightly larger than Lightning USB but it is a lot smaller than Micro USB and allows thinner smartphone designs. Speed, with USB C you are getting by far higher transfer rates, it’s powerful which allows to bring this standard not only to Smartphones but also to tablets, eReaders and laptops which means you can charge all of your gadgets with the same damn charger, how awesome is that. And last but not least it is flexible so don’t worry with the right adapter you will be able to charger Micro USB devices, or event display ports for data transfer.What else is new with the 950 and 950 XL in the Windows Mobile world? Right fast charging, this allows you to get up to 50% capacity with just 30 minutes of charging.The camera stays almost the same, 20 MP though I would say there are some massive improvements here as well especially in low light conditions since camera technology is one of the key features of Lumia Devices and the team responsible for is working hard on bringing a better camera from model to model, of course they are still working together with Carl Zeiss here. These are also the first Lumia devices to get a triple LED Flash.Maybe also worth mentioning is the support for Continuum Mode. I am not sure if this a feature which will be rolled out to all Lumia devices with Windows 10 Mobile or if there are any hardware requirements like a hexa-core processor for example so that this is working properly. Though this is an awesome feature, Microsoft has also demoed this at the event on October the 6th and it basically says give me a monitor, a mouse and a keyboard and we can get the full Windows 10 Desktop experience. The cool thing is that you are still able to use your phone as a phone while you are running Continuum Mode, yes awesome.

However the title of this post says design/feature comparison so let’s move to the design aspects of the two new devices. Gladly we had some lucky bastards in our team which have been invited to this event and therefor we do have some hands on videos on your YouTube channel . However if you are on your mobile or at work you might not be able to have a look at these videos currently so we have also made a few quick shots of the new devices. Microsoft has introduced and we are also comparing them to the NOKIA Lumia 930 for example.

Since a picture says more than a thousand words, I have embed the photos directly below. However some hard facts before you continue to scroll down to the images:

Feel free to drop me some comment below with your opinion on the latest Lumia devices from Microsoft which are available for pre order already and will be shipped soon. For additional information about the Microsoft Lumia 950 and the Lumia 950 XL you can have a look at one of our other articles here.Stay tuned for more Microsoft related news in the future.